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[report] TES splits finals at Mol, Belgium (56 players)

I’ve been reading the source for some years now and never bothered to register and post myself, but since I’m writing patient reports all the time nowadays, I’d might just as well post some magic reports. Tournament reports are by far my favorite articles as they really can help me getting better at this game, so I’d like to motivate more people over here to write one.

I get up 8 am, take my car and drive to Peter and Johan their place. I’m late as I’m halted by the cops, checking my insurance, driver license and alcohol level (yeah, 9 am checking my alcohol level, they really have nothing better to do apparently) We rush to just get in time for our train to Mol, including a 100 m sprint from the parking to the tracks. We meet with Tim (another team member) and start writing our decklists down.

In Mol we meet Shaun (citanul) and Wim, 2 other team members, talk a bit and then we’re off for 6 sounds of magic, 56 people showed.

This report is reconstructed from life totals and random notes I made during matches, so I might mix up some matches and details.

Round 1: Zoo
G1: He wins the die roll and leads with savannah, nacatl. I’m not too excited about this matchup, because I kept a 6 card hand of land, duress, lotus petal, dark ritual, burning wish, LED, giving me a turn 1 protected wish into 12 goblins. GG against merfolk, but possibly raced by zoo. It’s too late to change my line of play though, since without cantrips/spare tutors I’m not able to assemble another kill fast enough. Turn 2, he plays a land, drops loam lion and another nacatl and declines to attack with his first nacatl. I draw a lotus petal, attack and pass back. Turn 3, he drops another land, tarmogoyf and another loam lion. I know I can’t win this race anymore. I draw my card: ponder. I ponder, seeing ponder, tendrils and land (taking tendrils, putting ponder on top) My plan now becomes taking him down to 6 with one more attack, stall a few turns with my remaining goblins and mini tendrils him out. He drops another creature (yeah, no kidding), attacks with his 4/5 goyf, I chump. I draw ponder, ponder seeing: land, lotus petal, ponder. I chump 2 more turns and take him out with ponder, lotus petal, lotus petal, tendrils of agony.
G2: He leads with lavamancer, I ponder, setting up a second turn ad nauseam. Turn 2 he drops pridemage (second mainfase...) . I go for it, revealing from 17 with B floating. I reveal garbage and die. Shit happens.
G3: I’m quite pissed about losing at 17 life with mana floating and punt this game. Turn 1 I cantrip. I’m able to ad nauseam turn 2 unprotected or turn 3 protected. I’m paranoid about mindbreak trap and scared of going for ad nauseam after losing G2 (turn 3 there quite a good chance I’ll be able to set up an iggy-kill) So I wait for turn 3, giving my opponent his second turn (= possibility to drop his hatebear)
From the look on my opponents face I should have known he didn’t expect storm combo, leading to:
a) Limited sideboard hate
b) Hatebear >>> mindbreak trap, orim’s chant (since teeg and co have their use against decks like landstill too, whereas trap really is limited to storm combo)
However, he doesn’t drop a hatebear and I luck out, killing him turn 3 with a protected Iggy-kill.

1 – 0
2 – 1

Round 2: UW tempo (vial, spellstutter, daze, fow, wasteland, mystic, mother of runes)
G1: He leads with mother of runes. I duress, seeing: sword of fire and ice, stoneforge mystic, jitte, force of will, spellstutter sprite. Fow goes to the bin. I cantrip a few turns, however I’m still not ready to go off, turn 4 I bait his stutter with silence, which succeeds. Turn 6 I’m facing lethal and have to go for it: chant (stutter), chant (fow), rite of flame (daze), ritual in response (daze) yeah, dead in the water there
G2: My first turn thoughtseize takes a daze from a hand of mother, 2 mystic, p needle, serra avenger, 2 land. Mystic tutors for sword of F/I, shutting down the xantids in my hand. I cantrip a few turns, finding chant , infernal tutors finds another and I kill him with Iggy facing lethal next turn. This game he played a needle naming ‘LED’, since I’m too honest I tell him it doesn’t work (mana ability) and explain him that in my deck there is no target, however he could name shelldock isle or top. He appreciates my honesty, names grim lavamancer instead and we have a good laugh about my secret anti hatebear tech being discovered.
G3: I don’t remember much about game 3. I mull to 5. He apparently has a quite strong hand of waste + counter + decent clock and kills me before I’m able to get my engine going. (I buy a couple of turns with grapeshot, shooting his army of dudes, but he topdecks serra avenger and kills me)

1 – 1
3 – 3

Round 3: merfolk (mono U, pierce in side)
G1: I saw him playing last round and know it’s a blue deck. I lead with volcanic island, ponder. I ask him whether it resolves, he looks at me and suddenly seems to remember which deck I’m playing from scouting. He looks at his hand, sighs and says it resolves. He plays wasteland and uses it immediately. I drop a fetch turn 2. He draws, plays a wasteland, looks at my fetch for 10 seconds, then drops a vial. However I notice that the vial wasn’t the card he drew last turn. This gets me thinking: he isn’t happy about facing storm with his starting hand, however he knows (or should know) that without a clock merfolk is quite an easy matchup for combo. So why didn’t he play his vial turn one? I guess he kept a hand of double waste, vial and some folk without counters, changing his gameplan to using his wastes aggressively hoping to destabilize my development long enough to get his critters going. So I go for it turn 2 unprotected, creating 12 goblins and killing him in 2 turns.
G2: He leads with island, vial. I cantrip. He plays mutavault, adept, revealing another adept. I play a land and xantid (fow), eot he vials in cursecatcher. His turn he plays adept, revealing loa, vials in loa and attacks. I play my third land, orim’s chant (fow),manage to play through catcher and pierce, yielding just enough mana to empty for 20 tokens (I don’t remember how, but I was short on black mana) He does the math, realizes he doesn’t win the race and starts blocking, hoping to draw one of his echoing truths. He doesn’t and dies to the goblins.

He asks me to play some more postSBgames for fun:
G3: He locks me down, with turn 1 catcher, turn 2 adept, turn 3 reejery, turn 4 Loa, with 2 pierce and fow backup.
G4: He kept a very counterheavy hand, but lacking pressure, giving me plenty of time to setup, when I’m at low life I finally manage to break through his counterwall, however without resolving a chant effect and with loa on board both ad nauseam and empty are disabled. I go for diminishing returns, culminating in a grapeshot kill.

2 – 1
5 – 3
Round 4: UG vengevine survival
G1: he leads with tropical, go. I duress, seeing: fow, daze, land, aquamoeba, wonder, mongrel and taking fow. His next turns consist of dropping mongrel and aquamoeba, waste + stifle 2 of my lands and stopping my final attempt with daze, gg.
G2: I keep a hand with plenty of land, some acceleration and cantrips. I duress, seeing a hand of 2 daze, fow, survival, rootwalla, 2 land, taking fow. He drops tropical, rootwalla. My next turn I draw my card, put up a sad face and tap my land slowly to announce brainstorm. He takes the bait and dazes my brainstorm, after which I just lay down my second land and pass. He drops his land again, attacks with the rootwalla and passes, eot I announce my second brainstorm, he dazes again. Turn 3 I lay down my third land (his board is empty except for a lone rootwalla) and I kill him with ad nauseam.
G3: He leads with tropical, rootwalla. I mull to 6, keeping a hand consisting of 3 land, brainstorm, infernal, burning wish. Turn 1 land, go. He wastes my land, attacks and passes. Turn 2 land, go. He wastes my land, attacks and passes. I keep drawing land, but don’t care shuffling it away with brainstorm + fetch, since he doesn’t have much pressure. He starts missing his land drops, all the time just attacking me for 1 with rootwalla. I build up to 5 land (3 have been wasted), orim’s chant (daze, pay), lotus petal, infernal (revealing led), led, led, burning wish, iggy loop him out. Afterwards he tells me he kept a hand consisting of tropical, 2 waste, rootwalla, 2 daze, survival.

3 – 1
7 – 4

Round 5: GW NO survival
G1: We both mull to 5, we joke about our talent of presenting each other’s deck with crap on top of it and decide to just pile shuffle our own deck only. He draws his 5 card hand and says he’ll keep. I draw my hand of 2 land, brainstorm, 2 led. I guess sometimes you really get rewarded for mulliganing properly. He leads with plains, go. I drop my land and brainstorm, setting up a turn 2 kill. He drops a savannah, and I believe a survival. He doesn’t get another turn as ad nauseam kills him.
G2: As I had to explain him some mechanics about my deck, whilst killing him with ad nauseam, I expect he didn’t really prepare for the matchup, leading to a sideboard of x teeg and 1 canonist (he plays survival) He leads with savannah. I drop a land, ponder and pass. Turn 2 he drops another land and survival, next turn I’ll probably face a hatebear. Turn 2 I duress, and take him out, with infernal, infernal, wish, tendrils (could have gone Iggy, but was too lazy to do it)
Since he really was a nice guy, I feel kind of bad for him and I wish him luck for the next round.

4 – 1
9 – 4

Round 6: 3c TES
Our resistance is high enough to draw in and we talk a bit. Last tournament he played Saito’s merfolk and about six months ago he kicked me out of top 8 contention playing zoo when I was playing dreadstalker, so I assume he’s quite new with storm combo. He is really a nice guy though and we trashtalk a bit, saying we’ll meet in the finals…

Top 8: Goblins
G1: I know him, he always plays goblins and I consider him to be quite a master with his little green men as he frequently top 8’s with them, so I’m trying to keep my focus. He leads with mountain, lackey. Knowing he plays goblins, I mulligan my first hand of 3 land, 2 duress, chrome mox, petal into a 6-card hand of 2 land, brainstorm, ponder, dark ritual, led. I basically win if my cantrips yield me a business spell. I ponder, seeing useless protection spells and land, shuffle, drawing led. Turn 2, he attacks with lackey, puts in a incinerator, and casts a piledriver. I draw my card for the turn, another ponder. I ponder again, seeing only mana, but no business spell, I shuffle and draw a blank. He attacks with his team, lackey brings a warchief, he casts matron (piledriver), piledriver. I’m facing lethal. So I save my brainstorm for my own turn, instead of his eot, digging 1 card deeper, I draw a blank, brainstorm, drawing crap, crap, infernal tutor! Iggy loop takes him out.
G2: From his reaction I can tell he didn’t expect combo, so I’m feeling quite safe about him bringing in hate like trap or thorn. He mulls to 5, leads mountain go. I kill him second turn with ad nauseam, revealing from 19 life.

5 – 1 – 1
11 – 4

Top 4: UG vengevine survival
I have to play Shaun, who defeated Peter in their QF. I respect him as being a very skilled player and prepare myself for a interesting game. Especially since we know each other. I know his list only plays 15 blue cards maindeck, going up to 18 (19 if he keeps wonder in), after sideboarding 4 spell pierce.
G1: He leads with tropical into rootwalla. I play a land and duress, seeing: fow, daze, brainstorm, rootwalla, mongrel. I consider taking brainstorm, but end up taking fow, because even if brainstorm gives him his second land, he still doesn’t have a strong play. Turn 2 he brainstorms, but fails to find land, he switches over to rootwalla beatdown and accumulates 3 of them. This gives me plenty of time to cantrip finding an infernal, which coupled with my silence, double led, burning wish hand gives me a iggy kill.
G2: He keeps his 7 and leads with wasteland. I figure he’s holding at least double fow, because he’s smart enough to know that just a wasteland won’t kill this deck (especially with my playstyle, as I tend to mull 1 land hands quite often) I try to bait his wasteland, by playing my most expendable land: volcanic island (can’t play my protection of it), ponder. However he knows I don’t play pyroblast side and declines to waste my land. He just draws his card and passes. Ponder gave me misty rainforest, so turn 2 I fetch for tropical, play xantid swam, which he forces. He wastes my tropical, afraid for more insects. Next turn I drop a land, chant (fow), led, petal, ritual. I still have land, infernal. He tries to bluff a third fow by saying with my led on stack “so, you need duress + infernal” However, his fow pitch were 2 pierce, which convinced me he was out of counters. I infernal, look at my dice of 4 black mana and panic for a second. I didn’t miscount my mana, did I? (I always triple check it) I’m considering infernal for next turn burning wish into returns to refuel, before I finally realize I just missed my untapped volcanic island, on the left of my playmat. Infernal finds ad nauseam and I start revealing from 19 life. I reveal chrome mox, 2 rite of flame, burning wish and led, but continue to find petal, chant (yeah, I just really don’t trust you, Shaun) He scoops them up.

6 – 1 – 1
13 – 4

Finals: 3c TES
So it’s a TES mirror for finals. Despite the fact that I already play combo for quite a long time and probably longer than my opponent, (I feel old, when just of nostalgia, I put back in plunge into darkness in TES, just to goldfish) I offer him a draw, because:
a) I’m tired
b) I still have some work to do
c) He’s a nice guy
d) He’s from MCG, a team which features some excellent combo players like Tom (nirves), so he might be well prepared.
e) TES mirrors are quite lame

We split and each get 2 volcanic island, 2 bayou, 2 scalding tarn for our troubles. I give him first place, so he gets 2 byes for Belgian nationals in November, (I get 1 bye) as I’m probably not able to make it, due to university.

Afterthought:
- I still prefer 5c TES. It allows you to play chants and you have more green sources for xantid
- Xantid > pyroblast in side; xantid is a beast against merfolk, tempo.dec
- 1 krosan grip in side is quite random. I thought about cutting them completely (normally I play 2-3), but since I didn’t expect much counterbalance, I cut them down to 0, only to put 1 back at the last moment, because I couldn’t find another card I liked more as 15th SB card.

Props:
The deck, for being awesome
Bryant and other members of team epic for creating this monster
Team members doing well
Great sandwiches

Re: [report] TES splits finals at Mol, Belgium (56 players)

Thanks,

1/2 TES is strong, especially considering there were only 2 (maybe 3) TES players in the room.
I really enjoy playing the deck. It's very explosive, yet resilient. Secondly, I just love the decisions.
Sometimes you really got to think "out of the box" to get there. For example, 1 game, I burning wish for... ponder (coupled with brainstorm to shuffle away 2 random cards). I won that game, but would have lost it without that play.

Re: [report] TES splits finals at Mol, Belgium (56 players)

Originally Posted by Diprivan

Thanks,

1/2 TES is strong, especially considering there were only 2 (maybe 3) TES players in the room.
I really enjoy playing the deck. It's very explosive, yet resilient. Secondly, I just love the decisions.
Sometimes you really got to think "out of the box" to get there. For example, 1 game, I burning wish for... ponder (coupled with brainstorm to shuffle away 2 random cards). I won that game, but would have lost it without that play.

Actually there were at least 4 TES. I played the 3c version as well to an impressive 2-4 (sigh) and I saw 1 other guy who I think scrubbed out as well...

Re: [report] TES splits finals at Mol, Belgium (56 players)

Our own metagame breakdown has 5 TES players, 3 of which were UBr and 2 others playing 5-color with chants etc. Anyway, congrats on the finish and thanks for the namedrop. Good to see TES getting some results, I might get back into playing the deck myself - I played a modified dreadnaught list at Mol, so you might say I turned to the dark side recently :).

Re: [report] TES splits finals at Mol, Belgium (56 players)

Originally Posted by NiRVeS

Our own metagame breakdown has 5 TES players, 3 of which were UBr and 2 others playing 5-color with chants etc. Anyway, congrats on the finish and thanks for the namedrop. Good to see TES getting some results, I might get back into playing the deck myself - I played a modified dreadnaught list at Mol, so you might say I turned to the dark side recently :).

See you at Ghent on October 3rd?

Grtz

Hmmm, it's possible I missed some other TES players, as I only scouted the top tables. But I did see 2 players with cabal ritual, which is in my opinion an ANT card, but maybe they were playing their own build. Anyway, 2, 3 or 5 TES players of whom 2 split the finals is still a very solid result.

I think it's funny you played dreadnought, as I tend to like that deck as well. To me, it just seems the format's number 1 mono-U combodeck of the moment.

Yeah, tendrils sure brings the light. I almost feel like a saint when I first sing to them, do some rituals and bore them to death.

@ October 3rd:

Unfortunately, both Mol (vintage) and Ghent (legacy) decided to keep their tournaments the same day, so I'll have to choose. I don't know how this happened and think it's rather sad that there isn't more communication between organisers. Peter, Johan, Tim and me for example play both vintage and legacy, which will cause both tournaments to end up with less players...

@ Odd mutation:

I was nice meeting you again! If I attend the vintage tournament, i'm still debating oath, TPS and ANT. (I really like Menendian's grow list too btw) However, I'm still looking for a mox pearl to borrow then.

Re: [report] TES splits finals at Mol, Belgium (56 players)

Originally Posted by Diprivan

This game he played a needle naming ‘LED’, since I’m too honest I tell him it doesn’t work (mana ability) and explain him that in my deck there is no target, however he could name shelldock isle or top. He appreciates my honesty, names grim lavamancer instead and we have a good laugh about my secret anti hatebear tech being discovered.